"No, ma'am. I didn't suppose I would."
"You'll sleep in the loft. There's a ladder and buffalo robes." She went to the shelf and took down the iron pot. "I've beans and salt pork and some biscuit from this morning. It won't be much."
"It'll be a great deal."
She cooked. It gave her hands something to do, and it gave her a reason not to look at the letter, which lay on the table where she had left it, in the lamplight, with her name on it in pencil. She was aware of it the whole time, the way she would have been aware of a snake. Tallis did not look at it either. He sat and watched the stove and once got up, without being asked, and brought in an armload of wood from the porch and stacked it neatly in the box, splits on the bottom and kindling on top, the way she did it herself, and she noticed that and did not say anything.
They ate. He ate slowly, as a hungry man does who has been taught manners, and wiped the plate with the biscuit and thanked her again. Afterward she washed the two plates and the pot and the cups, and dried them, and put them away, and wiped the table around the letter without touching it, and then there was nothing left to do.
She sat down.
"You'll want to go up," she said.
"If you'd rather."
"I'd rather." She looked at him. "I'm going to read it now. I'd rather read it alone."